


Twenty Two Hearts

by Loki_Laufeyson



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, One love doesn't have to invalidate the other, The Doctor's love of different companions can live in harmony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 19:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8413204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loki_Laufeyson/pseuds/Loki_Laufeyson
Summary: When you've had twenty two hearts, how do you separate your past and present? The Doctor and River Song meet again and the Doctor finds himself reflecting on his relationship with her and reluctantly talking of his past love, Rose Tyler.A missing scene from between A Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this five years ago (five years!) when I was only about 16 so the writing could certainly be better. Still, I really enjoyed the sentiment of how the Doctor loving one person didn't have to invalidate another love so I wanted to repost it here.

A gentle orange light shone around the bedroom, casting a sunset glow upon the only piece of furniture in the room; the bed. Not bunk beds either, but a queen sized, circular bed with shimmering green covers, embroidered with silver symbols of an unreadable, lost language. The language of Gallifrey. Tangled within these sheets were two figures, a time lord and his…. wife? Well that was left to be said.

Sweeping a mass of unruly hair from his eyes, the Doctor cast his glance from the high arched roof of the TARDIS to the resting woman whose head lay on his chest. He couldn't see her face from beneath a wilderness of curls but she was still and her chest moved slowly with even breathing, so he assumed her to be peacefully asleep. The Doctor thought he had never known River Song to be quite as quiet as she was right then.

Usually he would find himself fighting against a torrent of mocking and laughter, all done out of affection she claimed, or having to listen to her superior knowledge of his own ship. River was a handful, of that there was no doubt, and yet he much preferred her awake; the Doctor's favourite kind of companion was one with a little bite. But could he even call her a companion? There meetings were so sporadic, so backwards.

The event leading up to this particular encounter had of course begun with a strange planet- this time it had been an inhospitable, dry land in the process of being terafformed by its new human inhabitants. _Those humans, spreading themselves among the stars_ , the Doctor thought fondly, _they'd always find a way to survive_. But of course they were suffering from an alien threat, if one could call it that at all- it had beenthe _aliens’_  planet first after all. Honestly, it had turned out to be quite a bit more complicated than his usual "rescue the humans from the monster" debacles. But save them, and the native inhabitants, he did. Not without the help of a few unlikely heroes though. In her usual fashion, River appeared from nowhere, just walked out of her storm cage, and pulled the Doctor from the brink of disaster with a winning smile. He had asked her how she wished to be thanked, a nice trip maybe. Her reply was so disgustingly human that the Doctor had no time to react before she was kissing him.

Reluctance soon subsided to curiosity as the Doctor found that River knew his body better than the back of her own hand, leading him to believe that this was not the last time he would spend time with her in such a fashion. Soon they were in each other's arms, having given into those horrible, primal urges that the Doctor rarely cared to think about these days. Oh yes, his eighth reincarnation had been a hopeless romantic with a tendency to kiss every human in sight and his tenth had yearned for someone he deprived himself from having.But this body was... untested. 

"Well," the Doctor had sighed, a little uncomfortably, "I can't imagine that's your first time doing that with me?"

River had stiffened in the Doctor's arms- _your first my last_ \- he thought he heard her mutter but louder she said, "Oh wouldn't you like to know, sweetie."

They lapsed into silence, leaving the Doctor to worry to himself about how his time with her seemed to stretch far into his future, but her time with him was drawing to a close. About the unfairness of it all. 

"Tell me about your adventures." She finally murmured, "I love to hear about your past. So complicated. I guess you wouldn't know, but this is what we always do. Just talk."

"Haven't I already told you everything?" It could have been a rhetorical question but he really didn’t know.

"Yes, almost. Almost everything. You've told me about everyone. All but one that is."

"Oh yes? Who are you missing from your collection?"

"Rose Tyler."

For a long, still moment all could be heard was the soft hum of the TARDIS, which provided the backing track to all of the Doctor's long, still moments.

"I don't know if I should…" he started but was cut off by River's huff.

She lent up on her elbow so her eyes were level with his and said, "I know that you…" she hesitated, not knowing exactly where the Doctor's feelings stood, "loved her. It doesn't bother me; we've all had past loves. I want to know."

"I don't know…" the Doctor mumbled, failing to add that River had yet to meet his Tenth regeneration and that when she did, he wouldn't love her. Not one bit. He would be consumed with thoughts of Rose Tyler and she wouldn't want that thought when they finally parted ways.

"I've heard about all the other girls; Martha, Donna, Sarah Jane, Polly, Jo, Ace, Charley, Nyssa, Lucie, Zoe…"

"Stop!" he cut her off with a bark wrenched from the darkest parts of him, forceful enough that River sat up and scooted away from him, hands clutching the sheet about her chest.

Following suit he pulled himself up and sighed mournfully before saying, "They break my heart. Every single one of them. All so fragile and so, _so_ human. None can stay with me forever even though I loved- still love- them all. Not in the way I love… loved Rose. But love all the same."

The Doctor ran his hands down his face and River could almost see him wipe away any façade of youth that remained, every line of adventure and pain seemed to set even deeper into his ancient features, "I love them. I loved them. I will love them. Past, present and future. It doesn't cover it. On Gallifrey we had more tenses. How do you go about explaining things with you linear little languages? I regenerate and…."

River pressed a finger against his lips to silence the rant. She smiled at his attempts to lead her off course.

"They all have to leave. And it hurts." She finished for him because, of course, she must have experienced this to an extent.

"When I think of her." _More often than I would like to admit_ , "all of the emotions are still there. The hurt is still there but I can't connect to it…."

His brow creased in a strain to explain how horrendously the emotions of his past regenerations affected him. They could make him wiser and stronger but all too often they were heavy, they weighed him down and confused his logic.

"When I look back on my time with Rose, the love for that girl is still there, in my subconscious, but it's as if…"

"As if that love belongs to someone else?"

"Exactly!" the Doctor sprang up, resting on his knees "The part of my mind that is still my tenth regeneration stores all of these feelings for people I don't really know anymore. All of my regenerations do this. They're my emotions, but they don't connect to my entire being."

At this he flopped down onto the bed with an exasperated huff. The inner workings of a time lord were an impossible thing. He had two hearts, one might state clinically, but sometimes it felt as if he had twenty-two hearts. Each pair beating a different rhythm from another. Each loving a different person.

He was the Doctor, but he wasn't Rose Tyler's Doctor. Not anymore.

"I am the Doctor." He stated, reaffirming that truth more for himself than River, "And I still believe in the same things. My _mind_ , the fundamentals, remains the same but my heart, the surface of me, is new. And it is _confusing,_ River."

Rassilon clearly never factored in the complexity of love when he gave his people the curse of near immortality.

"I understand." River said quietly, moving to mould herself into his side.

He looked at her expectantly, expecting a tale of a past love, but she just grinned sheepishly and breathed into his ear, "Spoilers sweetie."

The idea that they might meet again when she was in love with another made acid bubble in his throat, but his face remained passive. Because this is how they had to be.

Their story was painfully complicated, and bitterly tragic. For the most part, the more he knew her, the less she knew him. And vice versa. He wondered when they would meet in the middle, as equals.

"So, the adventures of Doctor Ten and Rose Tyler?" River smiled.

"Ten and Nine. My first companion after the Time War." The Doctor corrected, "Where should I start?"

"Somewhere familiar. The Daleks."

"How did you know we came across the Daleks?"

"Because you always do."

They talked for hours, the Doctor explaining every detail of his heroic deeds with the help of Rose Tyler (and Mickey and Jackie and Jack). He went from their first meeting on Earth to his regeneration and the Sycorax on Christmas, all the way past onto losing Rose in a parallel universe. He even explained of where he left the human Doctor. Happily, in love, with Rose Tyler. She sighed sweetly when he mentioned it, saying she was glad the girl could have _her_ Doctor.

When the tale was done, River readied herself to leave.

"Where do you want to go next time we meet?" The Doctor asked after they parked alongside her storm cage.

"What does it matter if I tell you? The next time you see me won't be my next time."

"It'll be nice knowing where you're going next for once."

"Well, there is one place I always wanted to visit, but you keep putting it off!"

"Oh yes, where's that then?"

"To Darillium. To see the singing towers."

Kissing him softly, she stepped from the TARDIS with a grin, leaving him breathless. But not for the reason she assumed.

**Author's Note:**

> I also think this all applies to Charley/Eight (who said the dreaded "I love you" to one another) now that the Eighth Doctor's audios have been made canon. I really recommend listening to some (or all if you're so inclined) of the Eighth Doctor's seasons. So so good.


End file.
